Turkey’s president is railing against the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister, who retweeted a post that accused the Turkish leader’s Ottoman “forefathers” of mistreating Arabs and stealing manuscripts from the holy city of Medina.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called on UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan to “know (his) place!” without naming him directly, Fox News reported.
Nahyan, had shared on Twitter a post that accused Fahreddin Pasha —an Ottoman governor of Medina from 1916-1919— of committing crimes against the local population, including stealing their property.
“These are Erdogan’s ancestors and their past with the Arabs,” it said.
Erdogan said the Ottoman Pasha who governed Medina between 1916 and 1919 was protecting the holy city and its treasures, adding: “O you poor (man) who is slandering us, where were your ancestors at the time?”
The Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah quoted presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin taking Nahyan to task for the retweet, accusing him of a “propaganda lie that seeks to turn Turks [and] Arabs against one another”, Al Jazeera reported.
The pro-government paper noted the UAE “has been accused of supporting plots in Turkey against the Turkish government, as well as Ankara’s role in the broader region”.
The squabble comes at a time when Turkey has sided with Qatar in a diplomatic dispute with the UAE and other Persian Gulf nations over Doha’s alleged support to extremists and overly warm ties to Iran.
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